Hot Shot
by Suk-fong
Summary: Without any whiskey or rum  At this rate, something might happen today. One and more, more- play the song.I don't know if I'll ever return to being like this or not.


Liana: i'd love a fic which features either jazz blue singers ~so something like the '20s used to be. or regency and there are lots of balls where people are very snarky through words.

... because people can be snarky through clothes in bad taste.

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><p><em>Without whiskey or rum,<br>Where else can you find this kind of girl?_

She holds her champagne flute tighter, watching her sister and a brazen red dress go from dance partner to dance partner, the social butterfly that Kurosaki Karin is.

She in all honestly, bored. She does not like these socializations, these dance halls sorts of things.

Jazz music plays lazily, and her sister leads another man to the dance floor.

She escapes the smoke filled room to get some air.

_Please play a song, so sweet that it makes me dizzy  
>A song that's so hot that it easily burns down my throat<br>Easily burns down my throat_

The cold February air burns her lungs, and makes her finish her drink faster. She sees Ichigo and his friends outside near a corner, hunched over something, probably dice.

She wonders if she should tell their father about it, or feign innocence about her brother's gambling habits until there comes a time where she can prosper from the knowledge.

Kurosaki Yuzu is used to being left in the background. Her family is loud, alluring and obnoxious. Karin's looks lures many suitors and lovers, her reputation ruins hers.

Perhaps she needs a stronger drink.

She loves her family, truly; however it becomes harder and harder to excuse her sister's behavior and her brother's habits to society. Her father's reputation as a genius doctor allows the family to show their faces at these events, but her sibling will soon degrade their father.

She will be the one to drown due to her family.

_If you hear it, you'll be shocked anyway  
>Just for one day, don't ask me things like that<br>Over here, shot- one more on the rocks, one more_

"Penny for your thoughts?" She turns, and pulls her shrug closer to her body.

She didn't expect to see him here. Hitsugaya Toushirou was Karin's lover for years. Childhood sweethearts and all that turned sour when he went away for school three years ago instead of staying with her.

"Or is that too cheap?" Toushirou asks, taking her empty flute and giving her a full one.

"Perhaps." She smiles.

They fall into comfortable silence.

"You don't seem to be enjoying yourself." He comments.

"As do you." She says after a while.

"The only one who enjoys these sorts of things is Karin." Toushirou points out.

Like an exclamation point, Karin's bell laugh rings out loudly in the night, and from their perch they can see Karin lead her chosen lover for the night out of the dance hall. Toushirou's grip on his glass tightens.

She's never understood how Toushirou and Karin could be lovers. They were so different, Toushirou quiet and calm, while her sister is loud and excitable, flighty is perhaps the best word to describe her. If Karin is flighty then Toushirou is stable.

A man's voice joins in with Karin's laughter and she freezes. It's Jinta's voice.

Jinta is-was, now she supposes, the boy who she was expecting to ask her to go for a stroll next weekend.

Karin didn't know that though, and she doesn't expect to tell her sister that. But she will stop talking to Jinta for a while.

She is no one's second choice, especially for her twin's lovers.

_Something that's better than coffee or chocolate  
>I want to keep this music to go in my ears<br>So my entire body will tremble, entire body will tremble_

Toushirou drowns his drink, and gets another for her as well as him.

"Do you still love her?" She asks, wondering why she did. Perhaps it's the alcohol.

"Does it matter?" He asks.

She guesses it doesn't, because if it did it would be him who was with Karin, not Jinta.

She and he drink more. They drink to the essence of who Kurosaki Karin is, and to loved ones lost to another. They drink until she is far past the acceptable limit.

He takes her hand and leads her home.

_I'm so bad tonight- what to do, holy moly  
>What do I do about myself, holy moly<br>Don't think about anything else  
>I'm not in the mood for that today, no- a different feeling<em>

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><p><strong>AN: **Happy Birthday! Again the international dateline confuses me, so I'm posting it now, on hopes you read it on your birthday Birdie.

You're so old! Love you always.

Love Suki


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